“You either have these very shallow ones or these rampantly esoteric ones with so many signs and symbols on them you can barely make them out,” says Matthews. “I bought my first tarot pack, which was the Tarot de Marseille published by Grimaud in 1969, and I recently came right around back to it after not using it for a while.” Presumably originating in the 17th century, the Tarot de Marseille is one of the most common types of tarot deck ever produced. Marseille decks were generally printed with woodblocks and later colored by hand using basic stencils.

Mediumship became quite popular in the 19th-century United States and the United Kingdom after the rise of Spiritualism as a religious movement. Modern Spiritualism is said to date from practices and lectures of the Fox sisters in New York State in 1848. The trance mediums Paschal Beverly Randolph and Emma Hardinge Britten were among the most celebrated lecturers and authors on the subject in the mid-19th century. Allan Kardec coined the term Spiritism around 1860.[12] Kardec claimed that conversations with spirits by selected mediums were the basis of his The Spirits' Book and later, his five-book collection, Spiritist Codification.

The British medium Francis Ward Monck was investigated by psychical researchers and discovered to be a fraud. On November 3, 1876 during the séance a sitter demanded that Monck be searched. Monck ran from the room, locked himself in another room and escaped out of a window. A pair of stuffed gloves was found in his room, as well as cheesecloth, reaching rods and other fraudulent devices in his luggage.[77] After a trial Monck was convicted for his fraudulent mediumship and was sentenced to three months in prison.[78]

A simple question, yet with such an important answer! Well, my belief is that it isn’t above us or below us — it’s actually all around us. I was taught to believe that everything is made up of energy and vibrations. The vibrations of this physical world where we exist in human form are slow and dense, whereas the Spirit World vibrates at a much higher rate.
Most religions have some belief in the afterlife, some more than others. I do believe that it helps to follow some kind of faith, and through these various teachings and a deeper understanding, it can assist us when it’s our time to cross over. I often use the analogy of the spokes of a wheel, in that each spoke represents a different religion or faith, and although each is independent of the other, ultimately they’re all moving in the same direction.
You need to work with the cards to become familiar with them but none of us can be totally objective as we all have blind spots. Consult with an experienced professional who can be trusted. Modern serious authentic and ethical tarot readers are not “fortune tellers” or mind readers. Real tarot readings become a therapeutic process for gaining valuable insights. A good tarot reading will affirm your own intuition and opens up more questions and options as part of a process, so be discerning when it comes to choosing a reader.
No. Most important, they want you to be happy. After all, you’re the one who’s still here and has to continue living in the physical world. When people come to see me for a private reading, having lost a spouse or a partner, it’s clear that they find it really hard to move on due to their bereavement. Some people even feel guilty for being alive, and some who have met someone else feel as if they’re cheating on their spouse or partner who passed away.
Trusting your intuition will help guide you toward the right psychic advisor. Simply browse our online profiles and see who you feel drawn to the most. Your gut feeling is your most important tool in finding the perfect advisor for you. Once you choose one, you can then view their ratings and written reviews to gain more insight into the type of readings they provide. Some people prefer a more direct, honest approach while others prefer softer, gentler guidance.
On the Other-Side, it’s quite possible that they may be shown the difference they could have made in their own lives as well as the lives of others, had they chosen to stay. When these spirits communicate with me, they rarely want to talk about how they passed, and they never link with me for very long. Usually someone who’s passed before them, such as a family member or friend, will come forward to help with the communication. I believe that these spirits need all their energy to work on themselves, and they’re going through a process of healing. I always tell people that prayer can help those on the Other-Side who have taken their own lives, and in this way, they can be assisted in their healing.
Visiting a psychic reader can be lightly entertaining or profoundly revealing, depending on what you are looking for. Take a professional approach to consulting a medium, and keep a level head when accepting advice or guidance Don’t get so wrapped up in the spiritual world that you are unable to fully enjoy this one. Above all, don’t be misled into thinking the psychic medium has extraordinary powers until you see proof.
Second, when the spirit speaks to Saul and gives a prediction, the spirit says, "tomorrow you and your sons will be with me.” Again we have to ask, if Samuel is a good man and prophet of the Lord, isn't he supposed to be in heaven? If we assume that the spirit of Samuel is in heaven, then, how can Saul, who is in rebellion against the Lord, also end up where Samuel is the next day? It seems the spirit is a lying spirit!
The spiritual guidance you receive during a reading with a psychic, medium or clairvoyant helps you to identify inner truths. This insight can be a valuable tool you can use to move your life forward. The type of spiritual reading, and the level of information and insight you receive, will depend on the intuitive awareness of the spiritual reader you are consulting.

Mediums obtain messages from the spirit world in different ways. Some receive intuitive information, in which images and words appear as mental impressions that are then relayed along to the living. In other cases, a medium may hear actual auditory messages or see actual images of these messages. Many people who do spirit communication regularly find that the dead can be quite a chatty bunch sometimes. If they've got something to tell you, they're going to make sure you get told. What you choose to do with the information is up to you, but a lot of mediums, it can feel like they've got someone's dead granny screaming in their ears, and if they don't pass that message along to you, she's not going to shut up.

Clairvoyance, where you see images, objects, people and scenes presented to you in your mind's eye. For this it's best to build up a bank of symbols (archetypes) for spirits to present to you that represent certain meanings to you. Your mind is an open book to the spirit world as long as you allow it. Your personal language of symbols and their meanings is accessible to them. As an example, if you decide that a horse represents freedom to you, if spirit shows you a horse then the topic is going along the lines of the client needing more freedom or gaining more freedom. Other accompanying symbols should clarify this.
Absolutely not! I’ve had sittings myself with other mediums, and some people whom I was close to here haven’t come through for me. I believe they have their own lives over there, and often they’re off doing their own thing. Maybe some choose to progress quickly and further, and while they will always love you, they’re no longer attached to this plane of existence. You could be getting signs from them, and you may not even recognize the signs and signals they’re sending. In the Spirit World, they don’t measure time as we do here, so they may still come through for you at a later date, or they may come through when you really need it.
I am a psychic medium. People contact me for a reading for many reasons. Some may just want to experience a reading, and do not have preferences as to whether it be psychic or mediumistic. Others have specific life issues, and are looking for helpful guidance “psychically”. Others will contact me for my natural ability to connect with someone who has passed, which is a mediumistic reading. Here is how I can explain to you the difference between the two types of readings:
There are many varieties of Tarot decks, and there is no standard number of cards across all decks. While the types of cards, the suits and their meanings are the same, the illustrations vary greatly. Decks are based on various themes such as nature, animals, fantasy, dragons, etc. The most common deck in the United States is the Rider-Waite deck, which was created in 1909 by A.E. Waite, a prominent member of the aforementioned occult group The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and published by Rider & Company. The artist was Pamela Colman Smith. This 78-card deck was the only readily available deck in the United States for many years, which is why some consider it the "definitive" tarot deck in the U.S.
Another important distinction is that while psychic readings often focus on predicting future events, mediums primarily tune into past and present issues. It's my opinion that predicting the future, while sometimes helpful, runs the risk of disempowering people. Always remember that you do have a say in how your future unfolds. Despite what any psychic or medium may "see" in your future, it is important to remember you were given the gift of free will when you came into this world, and at any moment in time you can absolutely redirect your course and create the life you want by changing your thoughts and actions. Psychic information is often just insight into what potentially could happen based on the road you are currently traveling—and it should be used only as a guideline to help you make the best choices for yourself.
In recent years, we've seen the emergence of "celebrity mediums," who are people that have become famous simply for being mediums. This, in turn, has led to some fairly intense scrutiny of those who claim to have mediumship ability. People like the "Long Island Medium," Theresa Caputo and Allison DuBois, who inspired the hit television show Medium, have often been criticized for taking advantage of their clients' grief. Still worse, many are accused of being frauds.
A widely known channeler of this variety is J. Z. Knight, who claims to channel the spirit of Ramtha, a 30 thousand-year-old man. Others purport to channel spirits from "future dimensions", ascended masters,[32] or, in the case of the trance mediums of the Brahma Kumaris, God.[33] Other notable channels are Jane Roberts for Seth, Esther Hicks for Abraham,[34] and Carla L. Rueckert for Ra.[35][36]

Every spiritual lesson we meet in our lives can be found in the seventy-eight Tarot cards. And when we consult the Tarot, we’ll get shown the exact lessons we need to learn and master to live an inspired life. It’s like holding up a mirror to yourself so that you can access your subconscious mind. Tarot allows us to tap into the wisdom and answers that live in us all.

4) Please have patience during a reading. I know that you are eager to connect with your loved ones, but sometimes others from spirit will come through first, (even pets) before the person you are looking to communicate with. Allow those other spirits the time to connect with you as well. They may have a message for another family member or neighbor or coworker that can be very healing to the person you relay the message to. It is an effort for the spirit to communicate, and their effort need to be acknowledged and respected.
Building on Court de Gébelin’s Egyptian connection, Etteilla claimed that tarot cards originated with the legendary Book of Thoth, which supposedly belonged to the Egyptian god of wisdom. According to Etteilla, the book was engraved by Thoth’s priests into gold plates, providing the imagery for the first tarot deck. Drawing on these theories, Etteilla published his own deck in 1789—one of the first designed explicitly as a divination tool and eventually referred to as the Egyptian tarot.

In 1991, Wendy Grossman in the New Scientist criticized the parapsychologist Stephen E. Braude for ignoring evidence of fraud in mediumship. According to Grossman "[Braude] accuses sceptics of ignoring the evidence he believes is solid, but himself ignores evidence that does not suit him. If a medium was caught cheating on some occasions, he says, the rest of that medium's phenomena were still genuine." Grossman came to the conclusion that Braude did not do proper research on the subject and should study "the art of conjuring."[180]

The ancestors of what we today know as Tarot cards can be traced back to around the late fourteenth century. Artists in Europe created the first playing cards, which were used for games, and featured four different suits. These suits were similar to what we still use today – staves or wands, discs or coins, cups, and swords. After a decade or two of using these, in the mid-1400s, Italian artists began painting additional cards, heavily illustrated, to add into the existing suits.
The British journalist Ruth Brandon published the book The Spiritualists (1983) which exposed the fraud of the Victorian mediums.[5] The book received positive reviews and has been influential to skeptics of spiritualism.[176] The British apport medium Paul McElhoney was exposed as a fraud during a séance in Osset, Yorkshire in 1983. The tape recorder that McElhoney took to his séances was investigated and a black tape was discovered bound around the battery compartment and inside carnation flowers were found as well as a key-ring torch and other objects.[177]
Taking a step back, we should be thankful that we live in an unprecedented time in the history of the Church. Literacy is taken for granted, but it was not so in earlier times. Access to books used to be far more limited; in Marsh’s Library in Dublin, for example, books were so rare and expensive that they were chained to desks inside of cages. Compare that to modern times, where we have some of the greatest works of literature and theology available online at our fingertips. How blessed we are! The tradition of the Catholic Church and all the writings of her saints are priceless aids that we need to utilize. Yes, need!

Four, some psychic mediums get feelings or sensations in their body and mind, both physical and emotional. A spirit can make the psychic medium feel sad if they are trying to convey the message of depression. Or they can make the psychic medium’s lungs feel tight if they are trying to convey the message that someone had pneumonia or lung cancer. It is not uncommon that a psychic medium will feel a painful sensation in the head if the spirit is trying to relay the message that there was a head trauma that caused death. This could be due to an auto accident or suicide (or any number of causes), so the spirit will also send another message—perhaps a telepathic picture of a smashed car—to complete the story for the psychic medium.

For those who prefer, a reading may be recorded and mailed or emailed to you free from making a lengthy phone call. This too, is also popular with my overseas friends. Taped readings are free from being interactive, but they are scheduled for a particular moment in earth dimensional time, and you are asked to direct energy to the session in your meditation on that gifted moment and any questions you may have for spirit as well. Recorded sessions and readings include e-mail follow-up.

In that vein, studying apologetics is a good way to learn more about the faith—as long as the focus remains on learning why the Church believes what she does, instead of bludgeoning others with the truth. Scott Hahn’s Rome Sweet Home tells the conversion story of him and his wife, Kimberly, from Protestantism to Catholicism. Just on its own, it’s a lesson in apologetics.

The spiritualists Arthur Conan Doyle and W. T. Stead were duped into believing Julius and Agnes Zancig had genuine psychic powers. Both Doyle and Stead wrote that the Zancigs performed telepathy. In 1924 Julius and Agnes Zancig confessed that their mind reading act was a trick and published the secret code and all the details of the trick method they had used under the title of Our Secrets!! in a London Newspaper.[141]

"Trance mediumship" is often seen as a form of mental mediumship. Most trance mediums remain conscious during a communication period, wherein a spirit uses the medium's mind to communicate. The spirit or spirits using the medium's mind influences the mind with the thoughts being conveyed. The medium allows the ego to step aside for the message to be delivered. At the same time, one has awareness of the thoughts coming through and may even influence the message with one's own bias. Such a trance is not to be confused with sleepwalking, as the patterns are entirely different. Castillo (1995) states,